Sheryl Mcintosh's Blog: Remain only a hop, skip and a jump away now

So, as I have long suspected, Parliament is re-asserting its Authority to end a Brexit process it has never supported with its heart (whilst practically voting it through many times..).

It is important to see things for what they are, the rebel group of Tories in any other Government would have the whip withdrawn. They have defeated the Government on the Finance Bill and now voted with the Opposition (in reality if not in fact, due to it being a Tory amendment) to derail the Government's plans for Brexit.

May is no longer in control, even the Speaker of the House of Commons can push her and her Government around. Effectively now May is operating a minority Government, short of 20 seats. If there was say Yvette Cooper opposite, then many of the Tories would have defected and we would see a real change of Government.

As it is, the Remain group in Parliament of 400 MP's are rapidly moving towards the moment where cancelling Article 50 reaches the floor of the House and is voted through by the ex-Tories, LD's and Labour. Brexit will be over.

The only detail is whether they pretend to 'extend' Article 50 to show a further pretence of not quite over-ruling the referendum. In reality, this will only be the choice if they think they can get another referendum or General Election. In the world we are in, the Remainers would be crazy to hold another referendum which they could lose, when all they have to do is assert Parliamentary Authority to win now. Possibly, Labour MP's will want a General Election but I doubt it, as most of them don't want Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister either.

The fly in the ointment maybe the EU itself, the price of revoking Article 50 might well be a referendum or indeed a commitment to remain for X years (something of a large can kick, say 5-10 years).

Again, nothing the Remainers cannot vote through with their Parliamentary majority. Of course, May herself is toast but she has been for a long-time. The Tories have one, very last chance of redemption, get rid of May, install Boris/Hunt or Gove, show they want a hard Brexit, kick out the Remainers and go into an election as the Party of the people.

Very interesting historically, neither Prime Minister nor Leader of the Opposition is in control of events - all the while Parliament is seeking to over-turn a decision of a national referendum against the will of the people as expressed. Truly amazing for this to come about - dare I say it, revolutionary!